Over the years Ganesh Satish has become the backbone of Vidarbha batting order. Whenever required, the 33-year-old right-handed batsmen delivered. Today also when Vidarbha lost the openers for just 18 runs against Maharashtra, he played out one of the memorable innings and helped Vidarbha to score 270 losing three wickets.
In his rescue act, Satish (146, 282 b, 19x4, 1x6) got good support from left-handed Atharva Taide (68, 145 b, 10x4) and Akshay Wadkar ((35, 76b, 6x4). At stumps, both Satish and Wadkar were going strong with still seven wickets in hand.
In the process, Satish scored 16th First Class century. Since playing for Vidarbha in 2-14-15, Satish scored nine Ranji Trophy centuries and one in Irani Trophy. Prior to that while representing Karnataka he scored six.
Earlier Vidarbha won the toss and elected to bat first at Gurgaon Cricket Ground in Sultanpur. Taking advantage of freshness in the pitch, Maharashtra pacers especially Mukesh Choudhary troubled the Vidarbha openers and then sent them cheaply to the pavilion. Sanjay Ramaswamy (3) who missed the century by just eight runs in the previous encounter against Uttar Pradesh became his first victim. He gave an edge to wicket-keeper Vishant More in the fifth over. Vidarbha received another jolt when Chodudhary forced Vidarbha skipper Faiz Fazal to give an edge to More behind the stumps.
Faiz Fazal who scored an unbeaten 192 against Uttar Pradesh in the previous encounter thus returned to the pavilion on just 14 runs.
After losing two wickets for just 18 runs, young Atharva Taide and his experienced partner Ganesh Satish started the rescue act. Once settled they played some good short and frustrated Maharashtra bowlers. In the process, Taide completed his third half-century. Both made 177 run partnership for third wicket.When both were looking solid Taide was stumped by More off Satyajeet Bachhav. Thus Vidarbha lost the third wicket for 195 runs in 63 rd over.
Wicketkeeper batsman Akshay Wadkar who played an unbeaten century knock against UP gave good company to Satish. Both made an unbroken partnership of 75 runs for the fourth wicket.
Scoreboard
Vidarbha (1st innings): Faiz Fazal c V More b M Choudhary 14, S Ramaswamy c V more b M Choudhary 3, Atharva Taide c V More b Bachhav 68, Ganesh Satish batting 146, Akshay Wadkar batting 35
Extras ( b 2, lb 2, w 0, nb 0 ) 4
Total: 270 for 3 in 90 oers
Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-18, 3-195
Bowling: Mukesh Choudhary 18-4-47-2, Pradeep Dadhe 19-0-90-0, Rahul Tripathi4-0-11-0, Satyajeet Bachhav 24-3-68-1, Vicky Ostwal 23-5-53-0, Azim Kazi 2-0-17-0